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Modeling Business Scenarios (Triple Extraction - Part 3)

Two-Place Transitive Verbs (Vg)

When we looked at transitive verbs, we saw that action was passed to a single object. We might refer to this as a “one-place” transitive verb as in, all the action passes to one place. In a two place transitive verb, we might reasonably infer that the action passes to two places. Vg transitive verbs are followed immediately by two noun phrases. Each of these noun phrases are equal recipients of the action performed by the subject.

The school board NP:SubjgaveVg a raise NP:DObj to the teachers NP:IObj

If we state merely one or the other:

The school board gave a raise

The school board gave to the teachers

We only have half the story. The school board gave a raise? To themselves? The school board gave to the teachers? Pink slips? Ah … the school board gave (a raise) to (the teachers). Now we have the rest of the story.

The action of the verb is divided equally between a direct and indirect object. The indirect object can perceive as well as receive. Indirect objects are almost always animate, and frequently human. Vg verbs create a business scenario of giving and receiving.

Other examples:

We NP:SubjgaveVg the CICS Workload NP:IObj an importance of 2 NP:DObj

Clark Gable NP:SubjboughtVg Carole Lombard NP:IObj a ranch NP:DObj

The format of a Vg sentence construction follows this template:

Subject gave (Object received Object)

So how do we represent this as a triple? A document full of one-place transitive triples is every triple extractor's dream. But we will run into two-place transitive constructions. Life is like that.

The solution is fortunately simple, and involves a trivial use of reification:

School Board gave (School Teachers received Raise)

We gave (CICS Workload received Importance Level Two)

Clark Gable gave (Carole Lombard received Ranch)

The reified triples are all atomically true:

School Teachers received Raise

CICS Workload received Importance Level Two

Carole Lombard received Ranch

Notice how all these triples are about receiving. That's half the business scenario. The other half covers the giving. Note that we could also express the triples in the following format:

a ( Clark Gable gave Ranch )

ß ( Carole Lombard received Ranch )

a in context of ß

There is no personal preference of the author for one format above the other, except that the first is perhaps more concise. In terms of representation for later retrieval (SPARQL querying perhaps), either method offers neither more nor less.